A group representing Canada’s largest employers says all levels of the country’s educational system are failing to develop the basic literacy and numeracy skills required to ensure Canadians can successfully transition from scholastic to workplace environments with the skills most needed by employers.

In a speech delivered to the Canadian Club Thursday afternoon, John Manley, the former Deputy Prime Minister and current president and CEO of the Canadian Council of Chief Executives (CCCE) — an organization representing 150 Canadian CEOs that collectively generate $850-billion in annual revenues — said poor literacy and even poorer numeracy are at greater crisis levels than the oft-cited skills gap and must be addressed if industry is to have a viable future workforce.

“I think it’s time to stop congratulating ourselves on the quality of our primary, secondary and post-secondary education systems, and face up to the fact that our performance in international rankings is getting worse, not better,” Mr. Manley said in his speech.

It’s time to stop congratulating ourselves on the quality of our primary, secondary and post-secondary education systems

The former politician’s appearance at the event coincided with the launch of a series of studies the CCCE will be conducting — the first of which was released on Thursday — to explore the root causes of educational deficits and their connection to the job market and skills shortage.

The skills gap has been an issue of perpetual debate among economists, industry leaders, policy makers and educators. While some believe the skills shortage is a real issue of national importance, others suggest it is an artificial crisis being developed by industry leaders looking to justify surges in immigration and foreign temporary workers to avoid increasing wages. Still others — including Mr. Manley — suggest the crisis is more of a regional or local challenge rather than a national one.

“I think the numbers are pretty clear that Canadian business lags international norms in the training that they offer in the job site,” he said. “Not so much the big companies. Not surprisingly, they do more than small companies do. They have the capacity to do so. But we’re still characteristically low compared to other countries and that’s something that needs to be addressed.”

Asked why that is, he suggested the root cause lies in industry’s view that training is something that is the responsibility of the educational system, not the employer. “In much of the world there’s less reliance on that. That could be at the core of it.”

A recent survey of CCCE members reveals an estimated 700,000 jobs openings will need to be filled over the next five years in various capacities. Meanwhile, two-thirds of employers in Alberta are experiencing recruitment and retention challenges — more than double the number in Ontario and Quebec.

The majority of the jobs that cannot be filled are in engineering, IT, general business and skilled trades. However, employers say they’re more interested in finding people with strong soft skills than those with industry-specific knowledge, listing people skills, communication, problem solving, analytical skills and leadership skills as being of highest value to them.

Are we going to reward teachers on the basis of their performance and not just their longevity? If so, how do you do that?

Mr. Manley said greater collaboration needs to take place between industry and the educational system and that more information needs to be shared amongst education leaders and government officials to identify what works and what doesn’t.

“In health care, we’ve got very good data… that the Canadian Institute for Health Information has produced to give us comparisons and identify best practices and adopt them. We don’t have that in education,” he said.

“The Council of Ministers of Education-Canada doesn’t have that kind of database to work with. I think that could be really valuable to test out what works. Are we going to reward teachers on the basis of their performance and not just their longevity? If so, how do you do that? What’s worked in other jurisdictions? I think a lot could be done by sharing that kind of information.”

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